


Most

by hellhoundsprey



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Forced Pregnancy, Jealous Jared, M/M, Mpreg, Obsessive Jared, Shy Jensen, Traumatic (But Non-Graphical) Caesarean Birth, complicated pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 06:07:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8521396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/pseuds/hellhoundsprey
Summary: Jensen is the ugliest part about Jared Tristan P.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Theboys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theboys/gifts).



> For the darkest of the dark muses, my nightwish, my moonprincess; without whom this story would neither exist nor be the way it is. Some sentences are by her as we cried to each other via chat over this mess...intensely. Sir, I cannot thank you enough. This was the Journey of all the Journeys, and I am at your feet, forever.
> 
>  
> 
> **Mind the tags. This is a bad-ugly-sad thing.**

Even after Jensen’s period is long overdue, Jared keeps pricking heart shapes into Magnum XL’s.

They say his heart’s as big as an ocean, and they don’t know how goddamn right they are.

~

“Can I give you my number?”

The rush of water around them is almost as loud as Jensen’s own pulse in between his ears.

He’s sweating, again, and the shaking starts in, so he falls against the wall; makes it look elegant, newborn deer adorable. That usually works.

“I dun, uhm.” Glance to the pool, Chris and Steve engaged in a deep conversation, probably about the man Jensen’s standing here with. “Shouldn’t you be... Sh—shu-shouldn’t you ask _Chris_ , if...?”

Mr. P ducks his head as if in comfort, steals some more inches in between them. Smiles like puppies for Christmas, smells like chlorine and sun and something Jensen wants to fall asleep on top of.

“But I’m asking _you_ right now.” Dimpling up, just for Jensen to see, only for him. “’M I makin’ you nervous?”

“N-no, God.” Stifled laugh. “Uh, maybe a, a little, jus’, uhm.”

Jared’s eyes follow the slip-slide of Jensen’s hand into Jensen’s pocket. Study the promise of fine bones hidden somewhere underneath all that milk-skin. (Twenty-seven in total, did you know?)

“Yuh—you’re definitely making an impression,” mutter-smiles Jensen, eyes down, thumb on his phone, before Jared spells digit after digit for him to copy. Take down. Set into stone.

Jensen texts him this very evening, and how could Jared ever say no?

~

“Mr. P! Mr. P!”

“This way, please!”

“Mr. P!”

Laughter like thunder, and Jensen never even twitches anymore. “Just call me Jared, jeez.”

They bundle up closer, Emma-Bird secure on Jensen’s arm, Jensen-Lamb crib-weighed in Jared’s. He shields their baby’s eyes from the flashes and toothpaste ad smiles his own way through.

Jared doesn’t kiss him in front of cameras because, “We have dignity,” and Jensen loves him for that. Jared has proper values.

Great father and husband. Jensen’s universe – his sky and his water and his air, his fire, earth. Crawls on all fours with Emma on his back (horsy, Dada) and would do the same for his Jen if only he asked. Jensen retells the horse story a lot. The tabloids love it.

Yeah. Jared’s kisses, like so many more things he gives, belong to nobody else but Jensen.

~

Their first summer is spent close to exclusively on the beach, but Jensen has a hard time getting a tan. He’s unconscious a lot.

He swears he’s leaving half of his brain behind in that bedroom. Jared changes the sheets while Jensen’s out, does his workouts while Jensen’s out. Whenever his eyes open, Jared is there. Like an imprint. His shadow.

Jared’s hands are so huge he can wrap one around Jensen’s neck, all the way, no problem. Jensen’s seen his boyfriend crack walnuts between his fingers with less effort Jensen would require for a peanut. He likes to handfeed them to Jensen just so he can fool around with his mouth while his cock is still recovering.

“Baby, you hungry?”

“Yeah.” Jensen’s boyfriend’s hands always smell like summer and ocean, but slowly, so slowly it’s almost untraceable, something else adds itself. Jensen rubs it in with his cheek, like a kitten, marking what’s his (they haven’t talked about it yet but Jensen dreams, dreams). “Bacon ’n eggs, yeah?”

“Course.”

Jensen’s boyfriend’s smile is what people fathom when they advise to kill someone with kindness.

~

Jared’s husband is so pretty it hurts.

Like. Really, physically hurts.

Jared has so many places he aches in for his angel, and they all drum so heavy his heart can barely keep up.

“No more, baby, baby, Jared, _please_.”

When Jensen cries, Jared sees God.

~

“…and that’s how I was expelled from the boy scouts.”

“Oh my god.” Jensen wipes away laughter-boner-butterfly tears, sips more beer because his glass is full again (like magic). Still towards Jared, not his drink, “Oh my god, that’s horrible.”

Leaning so close that the table between them could as well not exist. “And you?” Fingertips almost-flirting with Jensen’s. Little boy pluck is so much more darling on six feet four. “How’d you come out?”

Jensen wants to fly. Teleport them somewhere more private, somewhere he can crawl into this lap, get to know the tastes and valleys of his Mister (his breath-thief, his panty-wetter). His head droops almost only because he wants to share even less space with anyone else but Jared.

“Hmmm, uhm.” Baby smile. Take me home mouth. “’S kinda was out there once I brought my first boyfriend home, but, uh, yeah.”

Where Jared’s fingers were licking for purchase, there is now nothing.

Did…someone just punch Jensen in the stomach?

“Uhm, d-did I. Did I say something wrong?”

Leaning back, Jared states, “No, no,” airy and gone and Jensen’s insides wail.

Jared doesn’t return his calls for a week after that. Only two dates in, and Jensen feels divorced. Like Jared’s gripping his lungs, clips his arteries shut, just like that.

“I’m sorry,” and he breathes that into the lukewarm air even before they entered tonight’s restaurant, “I’m, I, I can get, sometimes I don’t think, and then I.” Clutches at the insides of his suit jacket’s pocket because he’s afraid what Jared’s hand will feel like. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Jared’s two entire of too many inches away, radiating warmth like a sun (Jensen’s), stands like a mountain. Says, “You don’t even know why you’re apologizing, do you?”

Jensen’s mouth flutters shut and open in quick recessions prior to his admission.

“No.” And, “Sorry.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“…Y—you’re–not?”

“No. No, God no. How could I? Look at you. God, jus’ look at you.”

Jensen kind of can’t with his eyes this stuck on Jared, with his perception pinpointed down to the sit-and-stay of Jared’s hand on his shoulder, gentle and heavy and so so close Jensen can barely breathe without swallowing (t)his man.

“ _I_ should be apologizing. I was being a total ass.”

Jensen tucked his dick up against the waistband of his dress pants, and he sure as hell knew why.

~

Jensen wants to be good so, so bad, but, oh, it’s so hard. Feels close, though, when he’s like this. Stock-still, eyes between heavenwards and nothing.

“You’re _trying_ to make me angry now, aren’t you.”

Jensen is afraid that even if he could reply, he wouldn’t have an answer. There are not enough apologies in this world for him to phrase.

Em shock-kicks his bladder when he startles hard enough to lose his careful-calm breath. He could cry again. Doesn’t curl his nails into his palms, ‘cause Jared will see that, later, and Jensen really really needs to call his Mom back until eight, so.

“I don’t get it. Why you gotta be so stubborn.”

Love-fingers over black-blue-green. Jared’s private rainbow, flower field (“Blooms so pretty, baby.”).

Jared never says it, but Jensen knows that it hurts himself so much more than Jensen. Can hear it in the strained voice, the breathlessness even though Jared runs four miles in twenty minutes without even thinking about it.

He’s making Jared do this. “You know I wouldn’t have to if you’d just _listen_.”

One or two of his toes feel like they’re not the same as they were half an hour ago; good, Jensen’s glad. Jared always puts him back together to something better.

~

He can barely speak. How could he speak about _sex_ with Mr. P?

Is eyed concernedly ‘cause he keeps stuttering his way through condoms. Doesn’t ask for much but that, spreads and swallows and kneels and bends in every way, every spot. Remains odd-adamant for the latex though, won’t accept to soak in all of Jared.

And Jared, saint that he is, he doesn’t complain, doesn’t scrutinize. It is for health reasons, of course, thank god. Of course wouldn’t want to catch anything from the whore he must think someone with a face and a body and a temper like Jensen has been before him; Jared’s so smart after all, so responsible! And, how long do they know each other now? Three months? That’s so little, isn’t it, even for a steady relationship. Nobody with a functioning brain would risk going raw under all these circumstances, Ackles.

And then, at month four plus thirteen and a half days, Jared, good wonderful holy Jared is already halfway on top and on his way inside and Jensen is somewhere between orgasm two or three, and Jensen _feels_ that sweet little boy smirk that always means trouble and which he loves to the point of obsession, of worship, which P presses half-mouth-half-cheek into Jensen while he grown-pussycat purrs, “Bet cream pies look so fucking good on you.”

“Uhm, uhm-” Ackles loses temper and control over the finer mechanics of his tongue. His cock, as always, is such a traitor, keeps digging into Jared’s diamond-cut abs, but his hole clamps down so violently at one innocent drift of sex-purple. “I, I dunno, we shouldn’t just yet, I’m not, uhm.”

“You’re not tested?”

“Wh—wha, n-no, I, I mean, of course I’m—Jesus, _Jay_ , no, I’m just not, I don’t, I.”

“Hey hey hey, Jen, baby, it’s okay, it was just a question? Nothing you don’t want, I swear. Y’know I could never forgive myself, don’t you?”

Stupid Ackles sigh-deflates, “Yeah,” kisses sweet love into the perfect mouth he orgasms in or around on a daily basis nowadays, and, god, he thinks, he’ll never again find someone as perfect as Jared.

~

The first time Jensen Ross hears that one particular name, he’s about to turn thirteen and has not one shimmer of an idea about how important it will be to him one day. Is annoyed by it, actually, for the upcoming years, because Chris, honest to god, man, he’s got an _obsession_ , it’s _unhealthy_. There’s a close to life-sized poster on his wall (even though Chris insists that his idol is so tall he wouldn’t even fit in this fucking _room_ , Jens), and Chris collects interviews and reads them like others read the Bible, over and over and over. If Chris wasn’t so obviously into vagina, Jensen would bet on his Epiphone 1964 Texan that he is jerking it to his ‘Mr. P’. Not that it keeps him from teasing Chris with exactly this suspicion, but, well.

Baby Jensen, of course, knew at that time that he was into broad and thick, less soft, more hard, less tits, more dick. And even though Steve and his brother were his super best friends who made blood pacts with him and all that, well, despite this bond, he wouldn’t come out until quite a while later.

And despite this knowledge, this sweet little secret he kept and which made him weep terribly one night or the other, ’cause how sick can you be, that’s disgusting, why him, why him, well, despite that, he never seemed to be interested in his best friend’s brother’s idol. Didn’t look twice, most of the time, ’cause, hell, Chris would probably throw a fit, be jealous or whatever. Look, it was complicated, okay?

It’s the year of Steve and him turning twenty-one, the year of their first legally consumed beer, and Chris made it to national tryouts, and it’s a crazy year overall. Things are so spinny and Jensen goes out a lot, tries his body and his contacts and plays his first gigs out of the safety zone of family gatherings or school concerts, and he’s buzzing, he’s alive.

Even this far up the ranks, Jensen and Steve can witness how Christopher Ernst is so close to pissing himself that they’ll have teasing material for fucking _ever_. The fool had boasted about how ‘P’ would be there too, oh, I’ll die, guys, I’ll fucking _die_ , which he doesn’t, instead makes second place which gets him a handshake and two-second speech from his God. They get so fucking hammered afterwards that Jensen ends up selling Chris’ still slightly damp speedos for a whooping hundred bucks because apparently, girls really dig swimmers.

It’s coffee and donuts after three hours of sleep, and Jensen air-guitars a new song in his mind while Chris is as good as crying, cheeks alit and he’s still fucking wasted, isn’t he.

“You saw him too, right? God, he’s so, he’s so—if I ever come halfway to what he’s achieved, I’d, guys, he’s such a GOD.”

Steve steals half of the donut Jensen’s been suckling on in his half-daze, stuffs it in his mouth which muffles his ass-snug, “Oh my god, jus’ let him mount you or somethin’, maybe that’ll spread his ‘talent’ all over you.”

The conservatively raised Texan in Chris reddens so fast you wouldn’t believe he accompanied Jen to a gay parade last week and had a fucking great time while he was at it. “You’re sexist and I _hate_ you.”

Steve snorts. “How’s that sexist, shitface, isn’t or _is_ your bro-love into ass.”

“First of all, Stephen, P is _bi_ , okay, not gay—”

“So, half gay.”

“Steve! _Jens_!”

Jensen raises exactly one and a half eyes for that, throws in an eyebrow raise ’cause he’s unfortunately loving the Ernst brothers like you’d love a sickly but kinda cute pet. Pitifully, but a lot.

“Jens, _say_ something! He’s badmouthing _your people_!”

Jensen can be sweet and understanding, but it’s nine a.m. and he’s hungover and the last time he got his brain sucked through his dick is _way_ too long ago. And anyway – they _love_ him for his foul, gay mouth; he knows.

“Chris. Your Mister can have every piece of ass he could ever want, so why the _fuck_ would he get anywhere close to _yours_?”

The conversation shifts eventually, even though Jensen doesn’t exactly know where and why, but he halfheartedly picks up bits and pieces of Chris’ steady Lord’s Prayer. A lullaby, at this point, something comforting in a very weird (and fanatic, seriously) way. Chews through the remaining bites of his donut and adores the way his fingers sugar-stick to the diner table.

Maybe he should write a song about all this. Title: my best friend’s gay swim crush.

Even though Mr. P is only half gay.

~

Jared’s modest in bed. Prude, you could say. Earliers used to tease him ‘sappy’. Puts all his finesse into keeping Jen up all night; doesn’t take much, just his body, naked and steel and Jared never gets sore anymore if it isn’t for this. Taking care of Jensen is harder than competing in the Olympics but just like it is with swimming, Jared was _born_ for it.

Slow burn love with candles on the side, Jen-Jenny-Jen-Baby sobbing parts or wholes of Jared’s name into the pillow Jared wishes was himself, can’t even take the thought of an _object_ being this close to Jensen. (Jared knows this is extreme, just like everything he feels, _is_ for Jensen, but God, how else is he supposed to function?)

Jared hires a Yogi so his boy learns to bend wider, lower, in the safe privacy of their workout room. Little circus animal, pale-cream Yin to Jared’s unrelenting Yang. Improvements kick in quick, and they’re both hooked. The first time Jensen’s candy tongue wraps around the stiff-stick sweetness standing up between his own legs, part of Jared’s soul perishes.

Nobody downward-dogs quite as low as his Jen.

He’s addicted to the miracle that is his boy. To the miracle that is every joint and cartilage, every bone and every sinew. Jared drinks from pores, caves them deeper to crawl inside. Up down up down up between ribs or fingers or toes – valleys and riverbeds, mountains and skies of Jensen Ross A.

It’s all his; wants it to be. Claims, kisses, vows, but it never seems to be enough. Always, oh, _always_ Jensen unearths news: grows a fresh freckle or hair and Jared’s in tears because why does he _do_ this to him, why can’t he be decoded, why does Jared always have to worry to _miss out_?

~

People who were charitable and safe and fed and educated enough dreamed up the term HDI, short for Human Development Index. It helps translating the finger-pointing ugliness of starvation and premature deaths into easy to digest digits. In their 2015 report, the United Nations ranked all one hundred and eighty-eight countries on planet Earth using this very tool.

Zero point nine four four ended up as the highest score. The lowest is represented by a zero point three four eight. Between the two lies a difference of thirty-six point eight six four four percent.

Now, that doesn’t sound too bad, right? Not even half as bad as the Developed Countries; us, the lucky ones. I own two cars, so they have only one. I eat out two times a week, so they go once.

I’ll live for approximately eighty years, so they will make it to fifty-one.

Our children go to school for about thirteen years. Theirs for eight.

“And this is the arithmetical average we’re speaking of.”

He recounts it as if it were his lines, and in a way, they _are_ ; Jared said he wrote the speech with his thoughts all on and in Jensen, kissing that bubblegum-blow of a stomach, going crazy with the thought that so many, many children will be raised with only such a small fragment of what theirs are granted with. That in another country, pretty little girls like their Lia get tortured just because, and nobody’s there to help, to rescue, and that, God, Jensen, it kills him sometimes, it _kills_ him.

“Today, I’d like to present you a short documentary my husband recorded in cooperation with the Red Cross. Because, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot afford to look away any longer.”

Em is an angel, the perfect addition to Jensen’s arm, almost-straddles her chubby baby-leg over her unborn brother who will make Papa throw up all three of hastily inhaled hors d'oeuvres in not less than one minute after he’s off-stage, but, oh, Jensen will survive, has to, wants to.

Jared reveals the sum they collected that evening to Jensen and kisses him all night.

~

“...Jensen?”

Jensen’s mouth is one hitch of breath away from begging Jared to keep going, oh God, but then Jared’s finger catches There, and then he’s over and done and out.

His stomach drops about three hundred stories low.

“Jensen. What is that.”

He’s too much in-shock to even cry, what the fuck. He can’t feel his body.

“That’s. Jen? Jensen Ross—you talk to me, _now_.”

Jensen doesn’t.

Fast-forward (Jensen can’t remember that night) and Jared drags him to an oncologist at seven AM the next day, mutter-churns that they’re not the best but will do for a first diagnosis, he’ll make an appointment and get the jet ready by noon.

Jensen’s wrist is throb-swollen and his tongue is a dried-up sponge in his mouth, and he will die.

It’s happening. He almost forgot. Things were going so great. God, so, so great. He was being so stupid.

If Jared doesn’t kill him, he’ll do it himself.

The press inside performed by cold-professional, gloved and lubed fingers registers only because Jared refused to put anything into Jensen after he found It. Afraid to do damage, to spread anything, God, he thinks it’s cancer but it’s so, so much _worse_ and Jensen is still frozen. Jared is so laser-focused on the doctor prodding around in Jensen’s colon that he misses to wipe the silently cried tears off like he usually does.

Didn’t wipe them off last night, either.

Jensen’s off limits, now. About to be discarded. If not for being so disfigured, then for withholding the information for so long.

God, should’ve said something. Should’ve told P from the very beginning, shouldn’t have misused his trust like that.

Jesus fucking Christ, Jensen is so, so dead.

“And? _And_?”

“Mr. Padalecki, please calm down. I’m only just—oh.”

Strung like a bow, Jared’s squeezing Jensen’s hand so hard he can feel the bones chafing against each other. Squeezes even harder as he barks, “What, _what_?!”

Jensen’s still staring at the ceiling, counts tiles. Hears the doc clearing his throat between his legs; an embarrassed, sorry sound.

“Mr. Padalecki.” Re-finds his slightly stricter medical voice when Jared starts raising his in urgency, in fucking _panic_ , Jensen realizes, and adds, “Mr. Padalecki, it’s not a tumor.”

Unable to shut out the talking, at least he closes his eyes. Concentrates on the vice of hand around his own, as long as he’s still allowed to have it.

Nobody’s ever loved Jensen so much and so long to even bother to learn the nooks and crannies of his body like that, and Jensen’s chest hitches because nobody else ever will. Not like this. Not like Jared.

“Then what? What _is_ it? There’s something, it’s _there_ , right? You felt it too, _right_?!”

“It’s called a cervix, sir.”

The unsurprisingly very terminal silence in the room is only ever disturbed by the plastic-pull-travel of medical glove from hand to bin.

~

Wasn’t raised on family money like other kids. Worked day and night to measure up.

J. T. Padalecki, a summary.

Beautiful picture of beautiful Jared-Jay-Buddy P, decorated with heart-skip lines like, ‘and his stunning husband, Jensen R. Padalecki, ten years his junior, young and bright-eyed,’, but no photo because Jared would go as far as suing the Pope if he’d mention his Saint in prayer for world peace.

‘Gained every penny himself and contributes to countless charities with it (Children Stuff 1, Woman Stuff X, Children Stuff 2-5, Africa XI, Korea 123) next to feeding his beautiful family of four.’

Emma Emilia Padalecki.

Thomas Jade Padalecki.

They’re thinking Sky if this one’s a girl, Wade for a boy.

(There are love children and there are wedlock children, and then there are children conceived under lack of oxygen and daylight.)

 

“Let’s, baby, this time let’s just let it surprise us, what do you say? Like a secret Santa. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

~

There is this aspiring thing from Dallas, Texas, and Jared can smell devotion ten miles up the wind. And, honestly? It’s boring him. And he could have gone somewhere else. Could have gone on that hike with Lance and Christy, could’ve done a thousand things, actually, which are more entertaining than bubbling some pride and motivation into one single swimmer who has the luck that Jared’s a friend of a friend of his agent. But, shit.

Fate worked its ways and Jared’s here, right now, and he sees for the first time what will haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Mr. P, oh geez, I’m so, it’s is cool to meet you in _person_ , you have no idea _how_ —”

“Hey, it’s cool. Chris, right?” Can’t stare at the company too much with the star stuck to his hand, still shaking it like Jared’s a slot machine or something. ‘Chris’ (good guess) practically faints. Jared laughs. “Dude, c’mon, we’re in the same team, right? You’re just as good as me, buddy, I’ll tell you that.”

(Of course he isn’t, they all know that, but it’s what’ll get this kid high and wet for the upcoming races, and Jared’s always happy to inspire the next generations.)

Now, back to the important things. Eyes to the prize, and the prize gets caught with his eyes halfway up Jared’s bare-waxed thighs.

Jared thinks of all that granny porn he was exposed to due to a lost bet way, way back in college, because God, _God_.

“Jared Padalecki; hi.”

“Yeah, we know,” slurs the one Jared doesn’t even see, stares to where he wants to never return from. “Stephen. I’m Chris’—”

“Hi. Jared.”

“—little brother... _Uhm_.”

The little thing has a rough handshake but his voice flirts Jared in like peaches and cream, barely-audibly murmurs, “Ackles. Hey, man.”

Oh, Jared is being drowned and reborn that very day.

~

Not ten minutes ago, Jared was still somewhat pissed that Jensen talked him into this vacation. No one’s here anyway, he said, nobody to look at _anyone’s_ ass, you’re seeing ghosts, P.

Now, Jared stares at Jensen staring at a waterfall, and he’s so overcome by his emotions, the entire storm of it, that he can’t think of a single thing but how much he loves this man.

Mosquito bites. Sweat. Fading blue-green kisses. Stupid cap worn the wrong way around like Jen likes to do, can’t get talked out of it just yet (’s a long-term project of Jared’s).

He’s wearing the shorts Jared hand-picked for him, last-minute present at the airport together with a bottle of champagne. They fit like they were made for him, just like everything does, no matter if too big or too tight (and wears Jared’s heart just like that as well, loose-snug always and forever). The only reason his baby needs a shirt size M is that his back is so broad Jared can teeth-print it in a line of, believe it or not, _eight_. There’s a waterproof Swiss something around that left wrist; twin to Jared’s. Got it for him after the first big (and hopefully last) Why Are You Ten Minutes Late incident.

The only reason Jared doesn’t put a ring on that this very day at this very place, this very _second_ , is that Jared, precipitate as he is, left said ring at the resort.

Obviously, his intentions skim to the next-best option.

Jensen won’t stop watching the waterfall even when Jared closes in on him from behind, wraps him in his arms, lets neck kisses skip into nips. He puts his beautiful hands on Jared’s forearms though, just to let him know he’s somewhat present, that he can feel Jared. “It’s beautiful,” he breathes, and Jared has never wanted him more than in this very second.

A barely-there yelp in vertigo, and then Jared’s thrown them underwater.

Jensen has the capacities left to fish for his cap and wrench it back over his pretty-baby skull with one arm slung around Jared, mouth full of Jared, the urgent-fast fill of cock against his ass. He’s got his legs fastened around Jared who walk-swims them back to the edge of the lagoon. Jared fucking prays those heels will leave indents, forever.

There’s a hidden melody to everything Jensen does; his breath, for example, especially when he’s growing hard so fast it’s obviously stretching the limits of his circulation. When Jared tugs his shorts down, juts his animal thing where it’s always itching to pump into, Jensen paws at Jared’s shoulders and grinds his now naked ass down despite half-heartedly, “C’mon, not here, you even _brought_ anything? God, don’t do that, Jay, gonna get locked up if you make me cream myself here.”

“Didn’t bring anything, love,” whisper-lick against mouth, eyes shut, Jensen so close Jared can feel his lashes on his cheeks; gets his dick out underwater, “only need you, nothing but you.”

Jensen blinks even though the sun is somewhere it can’t bother him. Trembles a little, twitches his feet against Jared’s tailbone as he slips a little lower, gets a raw slick-slide that makes him pulse open-closed without his psychological consent.

“...Jay.”

“Uh-huh.” Wider smile at hitch of breath, the baby-squirm on the very tip of his dick that could always make him blow like a teen.

“ _Jay_.” Almost feels like hesitation but tastes like every Yes Jared could dream of. Tugs him closer, too.

Jensen puppy-whines softly, but they can both feel the left-over shot of lube from earlier where Jensen never really closes up anymore these days, where Jared’s a common thing twice a day or more, and really, at this point he’s fed so so many little tricklets in there, it shouldn’t even make a difference anymore.

But Jensen doesn’t know about those, and he trembles like it’s the first time Jared’s exposed him like this.

“C-can you.”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

Melts open so prettily on Jared’s cock, wet-hot satin clutch of cunt, and Jared’s weaned off of Latex forever at the now so clear catch of flared edge on that darling, slightly slippery mound of flesh.

“Can you. C-can you p-please. At least. At least p-p-pull out. When you.”

Jensen tastes just right – sun and sunscreen and coconut and Jared, and water, and sweat, and he’s so perfect, he’s so utterly and completely everything Jared ever wanted.

Except for maybe.

“’S gonna be fine, baby, promise you. I mean, what are the odds, right?”

~

A last sweep of eyes over the world backstage, a smooch to Jensen’s cheek, a squeeze to shoulders.

“You’ll be awesome, baby. I’ll be outside.”

“Thanks,” Jensen says, a little fluttery with the excitement. Brushes over Jared’s wide, wide back, and then it’s time.

Jared finds his seat easily in the small club, orders whiskey on the rocks, flattens his vest and dress pants. The host announces Walls. Applause from everyone.

Jensen’s head is slightly bowed, maybe due to the weight of his guitar. He had successfully talked himself out of tie and suit and looks slightly out of place. Not run-down, no, never, but he’s in a Henley and over shirt, and it’s. Hm. They’ll have to talk about that, later.

The first song starts off. Jensen uses the waiting for his part to look for Jared; finds him, sends a timid smile. Jared raises his glass and winks, tickles out a wider excitement from his love.

As he plays, Jensen visibly drifts off into a place Jared can’t reach him. His fingers fly effortlessly, pick-less and butter-soft, steeled in times Jared didn’t even know he existed. In times Jared wasted breath on others when he could have had _this_.

If they had met before, he dreams sometimes, what if they had met earlier? Would Jensen have loved him like he does now? Would it have been different? Could Jared have been the first? Could he had saved his virginity for Jensen, too?

Jensen, sweet-sixteen-shy, barely one darling foot set on any stage yet; barely a pair of eyes that saw him sweat down his neck, move his mouth like that, humming and buzzing with the music. Maybe wore torn jeans—dare for someone, anyone, to slip fingers inside, find his skin. Unkempt hair, limbs too long for his body, skin too tight for his bones; like Jared, maybe? In pain, always, never fitting anywhere. Closeted little fag caught in catholic prudery whilst listening to Queen and Prince, dreaming with his hands between fawn-legs, pinky-ring tucked sweet into secret-pink, held breath and bitten nails.

God, he’s still like that, isn’t he. Jared’s shy-blooming flower, kept nice and clean and fucked-out, tiny stomach empty, heart overflowing, hands and mouth so greedy wrap and squeeze and beg for more.

They give two encores, and Jensen bows politely. Pit-patters into Jared’s awaiting hug, slightly breathless, light-headed; needs a feeding. Asks for beer and pepper poppers as if this was a rock concert, but who is Jared to deny him his calories?

“Anything. Anything you want.”

Jensen groan-smirks, “Oh god _yes_ ,” like Jared’s already balls deep in him, and the backstage exit isn’t far; thank god.

~

He’s so out-of-mind scared when Jen asks for it again one short month postnatally. Sends Jensen’s baby-sore cunt across the ob-gyn chairs of five different docs before he touches him again, ’cause god, “What if I hurt you, baby, what if I _destroy_ it.”

But his sweetest sobs tender-weak, soft-hot body grinding over Jared’s in their conjugal bed, their little daughter fast asleep so close by in her crib, and there are the most horrible, the most wonderful things being said.

Like, Jensen’s so scared, so so _scared_ , Jay, you don’t _want_ me anymore, ‘s that it, ‘m I not _pretty_ anymore, is it too _loose_ for your tastes, are you _sick of me for good_ now?

Jared almost breaks an arm that night in the attempt to wrench redemption from his love – how can Jensen think so lowly of him! Does he want to hurt, maybe, is that it, huh? Want Jared to tear him to shreds, want stitches, want an ileostomy, huh?, ’cause that’s what this will _lead_ to, what he is _asking_ for right now.

“I’m gonna load you up so much so often your belly won’t even go down, gonna keep it so full, ’s gonna be like she’s still _in there_.”

After said medical checks start what Jared will call the Sundae Days, ’cause, man, no matter the hour, he leaves Jensen behind so creamy you could eat him with a spoon.

Jared fucking keeps his promises.

Every inch of Jen has to be filled with him. Little salad shaker, gets Jared’s cream all the way up to the lid. Bounces him in his lap, so sloppy it’s making the most obscene noises, and his baby’s a slut but even _he_ flushes strawberry-bright.

Jared gets him a plug, not too big, not too small, just enough to keep come in and stretch out. It’s basically for nothing but the satisfaction on the pull-out – flood of wet down Jensen’s tremble-thighs, pooling on the closest surface, and it’s all _Jared’s_.

They haven’t had to use lube for a week now.

~

“It’s gonna. P, it’s gonna be, just, a couple a days, one _weekend_. Y’won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“No.”

Jensen stands in the middle of the living room of the mansion he just moved into a handful of weeks ago, and he smiles in confusion and disbelief, ’cause this feels scarily much like those times he had to beg his parents to let him keep playing D&D with the Ernst boys after curfew.

“P,” Jensen frowns. “P, I’m. I really wanna go. I, like, I told them I’d _be_ there, it’s—”

Eyes finally up at him, and as much as the attention is a sign of respect, it’s a threat when it’s from his boyfriend.

No smile anymore, but tenser hands, arms about to cross in front of his chest.

He tries, “It’s _important_ to me,” ’cause, usually, Jared’s soft-hearted.

P uncrosses his legs and spreads them as wide as the armchair he’s sprawling in allows.

“Jenny.” Calm and sweet like arsenic milk tea. “Jenny, darling? You heard me the first time, right?”

Eyes down. Flick of anger in his stomach, arms now crossed to hide it. The apples of his cheeks heat up uncomfortably, and he hates the sensation.

“Darlin’, c’mere. Come here, baby, I can repeat it for you if you’d like, yeah?”

“Why’s it piss you off like that?” Jensen’s talking to the carpet now. “You’ve even _met_ them. You _know_ them, Jay; they’re good people I’ve known more than half of my goddamn _life_.”

He’s seen angry people, god, half of his ex-boyfriends were misunderstood emotional still half-closeted musicians; he’s seen so many shades of hate he wouldn’t know where to start – but Jared, Jared, oh, Jared is so _unreadable_ , it’s _scary_ , and Jensen loves all pure and would never want to use this word on him, ’cause Jared doesn’t deserve it, but.

 _But_.

His band is his _family_ , for Christ’s sake.

“Y’know, there are people out there who care for me too, P, and I love you, but you can’t keep me fuckin’ _incommunicado_ like one of your awards.”

In favor of keeping paparazzi out (Jared likes to swim naked), the Padalecki mansion is rather far out in the ’burbs. Moreover, Jared has a lot of friends who come over every now and then, so it’s only polite to keep a mile or two between him and the neighbors as to keep the general peace in order.

It takes only fifteen short minutes until he’s got Jensen at the point of pissing himself like a dog, and Jensen’s hoarse after forty. When Jensen regains consciousness he comes as far as raising his head, to find Jared crouched over the laptop.

Is told like back in the hospital at age fifteen after falling from Steve’s skateboard and kissing the asphalt the wrong way that, sorry, sweetheart, this is gonna hurt a little – but don’t you worry, ~~I’m a trained professional~~ I read a bunch of medical articles; you’ll be just fine.

In the span of the first thirty hours, Jensen masters breathing around both a towel in his mouth and a tube down one of his nostrils. Hour fifty and he recites his lines into the phone like any good doll-pageant, tastes his own blood for the first time and tries to blur out the voices on the other end, tries not to feel what he is saying, knowing that this is the worst, it’s gonna be over after this, P will let up, P got what he wanted, right?

Hour fifty-one. Jensen learns how easy it is to have a shoulder dislocated.

~

 _He has to give back because it keeps him up at night wondering what kid will continue to suffer if he doesn’t get one opportunity to do better. Do more._ – Jensen Padalecki.

~

He does love him. He does. He likes his half-formed thoughts and the delirious way he chatters at night when he’s too lovesick and vanilla-swirled to piece together logic. He likes Jensen’s dreams and his dense-heavy wants; start and begin with Jared.

It’s late. Jared’s got both legs swung over the parentheses of Jensen’s legs, half of his pelvis pressed up close to Jen's still warm ass, one hand down there, circling the bruised swell of his hole. Jen trembles for the feeling, arches away away and tumbles back toward him with a heavy sigh. “C—can't,” he murmurs, but Jared kisses the downturn of his ear, can make his darling come maybe once more before Jen really does reach his peak, pass out in a tangled heap of chicken-bones. (His boy stays crystallized no matter how many calories Jared tries to feed him.)

Jared hums next to his ear, likes for Jen’s Last Sound to be his voice, carry him off. “What do you want, sweetheart?” Soft. Jensen’s barely moving despite the almost-silent slip-slop of fingers through Jared’s dick-warmth.

“We jus’—we jus’ went on a cruise,” Jen says, eyes drooping—he's asleep and they’re both floating. He misunderstands.

“Baby,” Jared love-sighs.

“Wanna. Wanna backpack. Used to. Jared. Used to have money saved because it was gonna be me n’ nature. An’ the world, y’know. Swiss Alps. Just us and it was gonna be so pretty because I was n—never. God,” Jensen sucks in his air so shaky, “What’s to be scared of out there?”

Jensen whimpers suddenly, abrupt, cruel noise and Jared can feel five fingers digging in a jagged point. Startling. Expanse of small flesh, dotted like his.

Suddenly, he's the one who can’t quite remember what it’s like to breathe.

Jensen out there. Just seeing the sights, and Jared without him. Why didn't he just _ask_? Jared would’ve set it up. Whole European tour guide. Months on end, he can train anywhere. Water is universal.

Why didn’t he just fucking _ask_?

~

Three-days-fresh, Jared releases her into the pool, already teaching her how to swim.

“It’s an instinct, love. Floats like driftwood.”

Emma Emilia, Lia or Em, princess, angel, mermaid, sweetest, baby girl – their love has too many names, will never learn to respond to anything but their voices, whispered and giggled and kissed into her so incredibly tiny ears.

Family vacations via private jet; Jared pays for the space, paparazzi-free and unhounded. Jensen takes hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of Lia and Jay by the ocean and no magazine will ever see them, only theirs, sacred traces of firstborn-love, undeterred daughter-bliss.

(Lia says, “Papa,” her first word, over the ripest mango Jared’s ever slit open for someone.)

“God, her face. Oh, P, I’ll never close my eyes again.”

Papa traces toddler-cheeks with music-scarred thumbs while they’re filling with milk, suck and swallow, and it’s so innocent, so breathtaking, that Jared watches open-mouthed, every single time. They are bare to sun and water the entire stay and yet there is nothing obscene about it. Mesmerized by their child, how could they even begin to think of something as egoistic, as Emma-excluding as sex? Jensen’s body is a temple, something Jared cradles to his own at every occasion, kisses and traces and makes sure every mark and every newness earns its rightful attention. This body gave them their child, nurses it, shelters it, has known her body before they knew she even existed, had her longer than them, and they can’t wait to outrun this rude, rude headstart.

Even though Lia never cries (not a single time, even though she already looks so painfully much like her beautiful, beautiful papa), Jensen sings to her, every night, every noon, before every nap and sometimes in between. Cheerful things while she eats, makes her clap her hands and giggle sky-high; heart-breaking softness in the sunsets, midnights, holds his nose closely pressed to her milk-scented crown right next to Jared.

Emma-Bird yawns and scrambles awake in the shadows of the palms in the backyard, and Jensen stirs only slightly, knows she can’t crawl far yet, he’s got another few moments before opening his eyes completely.

Jared’s on the phone with his agent who’s tuning him in with some magazine they chose for P’s Baby Statement, and Jared will forever cry re-reading his statement, ’cause that’s what he remembers then, this image, this scenery.

“I never thought it was possible to love someone so much. She’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me. And Jensen Ross, my Jen, he gave her to me. I’m—I’ll never be able to pay him back.”

~

So violent when he panics; knows himself, yeah, yes, he’s _aware_. Could crush worlds, throw planets, uproot galaxies.

He’s got all the money he’d ever need, and he’s fucking scared that it won’t be enough to save him this time.

“The pills have to stay down, okay, can you do that for me, can you do that for the baby, sweetheart, c’mon, please, Jen, _please_?”

The hairs under Jared’s fingers are practically fluid, and his tongue hurts from chafing over his teeth, all raw and unwilling but he won’t eat either anyway if Jensen doesn’t, so what’s even the _deal_.

Jensen makes a weak sound under his palm, tries to nod. Jared shushes him sweet through the heaves, makes Jensen swallow it all back down. Doctor’s orders.

Jared’s sweat burns in his eyes, pearls down his temples, has his lip trembling at the glance at his Rolex. ‘S been two hours since Emma’s eaten and Jensen doesn’t even seem to notice. Shouldn’t he _feel_ it? Shouldn’t he be _aching_? Has it been nothing but _lies_ when he’s told Jared, told him it feels like he’s gonna burst if she doesn’t drink him flatter any second now?

Jared’s hand clamps tighter until Jared can hear the creak of jaw over the churning of his own teeth.

“You wanna sleep, baby? Want me to make you sleep, yeah?” Doesn’t wait for an answer, pinches flutter-wide nostrils tight. Pinches tighter when Jensen ‘too exhausted to sit upright’ Ross has the nerve to gather enough strength to try to pluck Jared’s hands off but not for letting Jared big-spoon him last night, not for cradling their baby girl when she was screaming for him an hour ago.

“Shhh. ’S gonna be alright. I’ll go get her now, she’ll be fine, don’t you worry ’bout it, Daddy’s got this, shhh.”

Ragdoll-soft but brimmed with enough milk to have some left for Jared once Emma’s all stuffed-asleep.

Jared swears it used to be sweeter. Thicker.

Jared’s heart is close to stopping because what if Jensen’ll run dry one of these days?

Jared stays up all night calling doctors. Has a race tomorrow, will attend, will win, pull ahead, will smile. Will strap Emma-Bird to her papa’s chest in the meantime if he has to; never wants a nanny in the house, close to his family, no, that’s _his_ place, _his_ job.

One-oh-one fever. Jensen cries when he gets the needle. Will cry more once Bernstein brings over the thicker, infusion-style ones. “I’m sorry, baby, I know, I’m sorry,” Emma-asleep whisper; hits the vein on the first try but Jensen’s struggling even despite his makeshift straitjacket. Looked like fainting for days now, so close to death that Jared wants to scream his lungs out, wants to slice that belly open and get the rice grain sized to-be suicide terrorist out there, _now_.

Jared impulse-donates a five digit sum to Planned Parenthood once those Fahrenheits finally fade.

~

When Mr. P asks him to come home with him that night, Jensen’s suddenly so much more virgin than he used to be even prior to eighth grade and Richard Tames’ dick.

Actually, he freezes up so hard he doubts he will be able to get home. Pulls a muscle or five, sweat and stuttering, and his eyes and his cock cry together because god, he wants, he wants wants wants, but how, _how in the fuck_ will _that_ work out?

“Too soon?” and Jared’s so soft, so gentle with his hand, rubs Jensen’s shoulder like he rubbed his asshole two days earlier, but no amount of time will ever make it better or will make _Jensen_ be better, will always leave him useless-constipated about things like opening his mouth and saying the truth.

Like: I want to sit on your cock, Mr. P, here, now, I don’t care who sees, just have me, make me yours.

Or, also true: I couldn’t take it if you’d find out I wasn’t enough, and I fear that I’m not, ’cause you’re the best that’s ever been close to me and that scares me so much I want to stab myself in the throat with my car keys.

“N—no, I’m. I mean, I’m, it’s—I, I want to, god, I want to, but I’m jus’, it’s. We’ve had a couple a drinks in there, an’, it’s been awhile since I. Since I.”

“Since you’ve been fucked.”

Simultaneous swell in pants and throat. Jensen nods scarlet.

“Darling. Oh darling, _baby_ , don’t you worry, yeah?” Darling-tender whisper that gives Jensen five kinds of orgasms, two of them in this spot behind his ear Jared owned since he brushed his tipped nose over it last week after coffee. “I’ll take such good care’a you.”

Jared is always offering like this. Sacrifices endlessly, gives Jensen his chest to hide in while he fits his knee between Jensen’s, keeps them ajar just enough to slide a hand where Jensen’s been desperate since the entrée. Jacks him so sweetly through his dress pants that Jensen whimpers like a girl. Forgets who and what he is. That this is a main street. That the cab is waiting, engine running on Jared’s money.

Only one thing he knows and wants and can pronounce without failure, “Jay,” ’cause, ultimately, that’s what this is going to add up to, where this will get him.

Jensen slip-slides between various states of consciousness during the ride. Feels undressed and buried alive, ’cause Jared’s hands, and Jared’s mouth, and Jared’s _everything_. God. God, the sweat stains in Jensen’s armpits are big enough to declare Independence on his ass.

His cock has slicked through Calvins and Armani, and Jared tugging both of them down doesn’t exactly do a single thing for him.

Were he still coherent, he’d ask for bed and cock and now. Whimpers and humps uselessly instead when Jared sinks to his knees to lollipop-swirl around his slit, is barely touching him as he is. Eyes up to Jen and he hasn’t figured out their color yet, doesn’t even have a name for what he sees and yet is about to get right to the prize, just like that, doesn’t even have to ask much, Jared just _gives_.

“This is my corridor, by the way.”

Jensen laugh-sobs, hiccups his breath as he is hoisted up and baby-slung around Jared and locks his ankles like this is law.

“Living room.”

Kitten-licks into Jensen’s mouth, feeling him up. Huge hands on Jensen’s ass pry him wide before letting him close up again, Jared’s clothes shifting against Jensen’s skin on every step and Jared’s breath doesn’t even get affected in the slightest.

“Wanna see the bedroom, yeah? Need you in my bed, baby. Need you in my sheets ever since I first saw you.”

Jensen is already on his back by the time he finds the physical control to give his consent, gets his shirt plucked open and away and he’s too shaky to do more than undo two of the many buttons of Jared’s still-intact suit layers.

Expected to cry on Mr. P’s cock, yeah, but not prior to even _seeing_ it. But here he is, apparently.

Jared cradles him sex-warm, sucks on his lip and tongue like Jensen knows he sucks dick. God, he’s so wet, he’s so _wet_.

“How’m I gonna call you, huh, pretty thing? How’d you like to be called hanging off my cock?”

“ _Yours_ ,” Jen sobs, uselessly on repeat until his voice gives out – rather quick once P froze and then uncurled and then fucking caveman’d his way between and under Jensen’s thighs. Folds him up like a favorite tee (soft and warm and gets worn so often; no need to be gentle with it), and Jensen’s all blood and no air here, grips into the backs of his knees so fast and hard he doesn’t even feel the dig of his fingernails with how desperately he pulls.

Jensen Ross Ackles realizes his entire sex life up to this moment, the moment where Mr. J. T. Padalecki buries his entire handsome-beautiful face in his ass, has been nothing but lies and that he knows nothing, absolutely _nothing_ about _anything_.

He keen-throbs-crosseyes through the first horrifying seconds and from there on Jared’s got him deadalive on a string.

Jen is silk-weak, butterfly-wing under that tongue. Moans things he didn’t know were words before, holds onto his legs as if he could pull them backwards through his shoulders. Wants more, maybe says that, and gets a thousand fold of what he thought possible.

He’s heart-ruined for the rest of the human population by the time a single thumb pushes past his no longer impossible clench, but when he’s pried and held open on _two_ , he forgets about every good Texan boy pride he’s ever had. Shoves up into Jared’s mouth which’s simply grinning, universe-galaxy eyes wide like a tease; Jensen can see excited pink on apples of tanned cheeks and it makes him want to cry and kick and shout.

Which he does. In that order.

“Putitinmeplease, please Jay, PLEASE Mr. P, pleaseplaseplease I’m gonnadie, ’m gonna die an’s gonna be YOUR FAULT, y’gotta fuck me NOW or I won’t talk to you EVER AGAIN!”

Because past-Jensen was more coherent, had his ducks in a row an’ all, he flirted with unsexy stupids like ‘I think condoms are super hot; I like the feel and the taste, I know it’s weird, don’t look’a me like that’ and ‘protection is so important nowadays, Jay, people who don’t look after themselves, that’s just _sick_ , don’t you agree?’, and present-Jensen loves him forever for it; loves the undressing solid-shaking thing kneeing himself down and rolling air-thin latex down on something that looks like it’s ready to kill Jensen, to stab him open and never let him close up ever again, and despite for half a shock of the imminent taste of death lying in the air, Jensen can’t wait for it to happen, wants it to happen, wants to be marked and altered forever.

Oh, what a souvenir, what a vivid memory it will be! (Once, of course, Jared discards him afterwards, fucked himself empty in Jensen, wakes up and realizes with disgust that this whore, this little fuckhole is still in his thousand dollar sheets.) Oh, what a joy it will be to look back!

Then Jared’s over him, shutting everything out with arms and shoulders and hair and eyes, stares at Jensen so hard Jensen is afraid he’ll leave this bed in one piece after all, that Jared changed his mind. But then he feels the weight and the strain and the bloodlust-pulse of P’s cock unquestioningly demanding entrance.

Jensen swallows so loud his own ears are ringing from it, can’t move, can’t even shiver, especially not after he faintly, distantly hears his Jay announce, “Mine, oh yeah,” and Jensen thinks he nods, maybe, but then again he can’t move or feel or breathe but the fact that he’s breaking open around a crown of cock the size of your average grade-schooler’s fist.

If this wasn’t Jared, if this wasn’t what Jensen has dreamed of for the entirety of the two weeks they’ve known each other and talked with each other and held hands on top of finely ironed tablecloths, if this wasn’t it, Jensen would shatter now.

(Not sure if he doesn’t, actually, but.)

“Hold on to me. Got you. Got you, sweetheart; here.”

Eyes still there, tongue now stiffly prodding against the corpse of Jensen’s mouth, Jared drapes his cold hands around his neck. Jensen didn’t even notice he had hoisted his knees over his shoulders. Still is folded for access, is being sunk into.

The first inhale on Jared’s Cock sends him into blackness for a second there.

“J—j-j, I, I-I-I—”

“Shhh, push out an lemme in. Lemme in there, Jen.”

Jensen does but his chest remains so so tight with the knowledge that _miles_ of cock are left where Jensen’s suffocating _already_.

Neither Jensen’s nor Jared’s body got that memo though, apparently, ’cause down it goes – goes – goes.

“Mine. Y’said it’s mine, di’n’t you.” The fact that Jared’s slurring all cunt-strangled gives Jensen the deepest of butterflies, makes his stupid heart twitch alive. “Always take care of what’s mine.“

Jared slams the last third home in one fast razor-move, and Jensen hurts so bad he can’t even cry out.

They both make noises on the drawback, both painful-ugly but nothing alike at all, and Jen’s fingers slip violently, try for purchase and Jared bites his cheek in dog-revenge, makes him stop this nonsense and tear-splutter over the drop back in.

“Please, please, please—”

“Mh-mh. ’S mine now, all mine, baby.”

Jensen smells his own blood before he feels it, and that should be bad, _is_ bad, but this is Mr. P and Jensen realizes that this is the only way to have him, that this is the only way he could ever be _Mr. P’s_ , and it’s when he realizes these things and accepts them, melts into them, that the pain begins to lift.

Leaves him hot-blooded, too drippy and wet in too many places.

Weirdly empty and sad, ’cause it’s not enough; _never_.

He pets at Jared’s cheek, sweat and stubble chafing him all the while that soda can thick cock pumps lazy into the hot-healthy-pink Jensen maintains his ass in, and he feels Jared’s features stiffen or twitch or both under his palm when he chokes,

“W-want you, want you to, g-gotta. P, gotta have me, take me, all of it, want you, ’s so bad, n- _need_.”

Things get blurry-white and out of control from here, and Jensen remembers certain episodes of it – like the palpable churn of P’s teeth when he snaps his hips onto Jensen’s upturned ass so hard the screams get knocked right out of his throat, or when Jared grunts the question of whether Jensen can _feel him_ , if he knows _what all this here means_ , that _there’s no going back now, Jen_ , and Jensen wails for _yes_ and more and, in an afterthought, could kick himself for being so reckless. Could’ve missed (and almost _did_ ) Jared coming inonover-all-around him for the first time, that big, wonderful First Time they’ll forever share, that nobody can take away from Jensen, ever.

Jared pepper-kisses him silly after, pulls out and ties off and discards and groan-loves his palm over the slick of Jen’s come-ruined belly. Jensen eyes it with wonder, can’t move his legs but has no big interest in that right now. _Wants_ to be able to force his legs shut though when Jared’s boy-cream fingers slip slide over and then horribly far _into_ where he’s just torn Jensen up like a child bride, would have fainted if Jared hadn’t sucked a, “Thought it’s mine?” into his suddenly very tender tit. Forces his eyes to blink back into life. Forces his nose to smell Mr. P’s aftershave and sex-sweat instead of the traces of copper he is afraid will, in contrast to Jensen himself, stay with these sheets until the end of their time.

“Never came so hard in my life,” Jensen hears himself croak. He’s still paralyzed. (Maybe P has a policy about keeping damaged goods – oh, _please_.)

More kissing. Jensen can feel _that_ , certainly. “Well, let’s hope you can come from choking on it too, ’cause that might be all we can pucker you up to the next days.”

Jensen remembers closing his eyes and mourning that oh, how sad: he’s died and gone to Heaven tonight after all.

~

Here, Jared is at peace. Begged for diving lessons as a kid just so he could stay below the surface some precious moments longer, got what he wanted, worked hard and harder in frustration of his physical limits. Swimming the crawl lets him have the benefits of water and endless air supply; it’s just luck, seriously, that this is an Olympic sport and that he could make it his job to do what he can—and likes—best.

Jared, all early-matured discipline, well, no, Jared doesn’t particularly _need_ a trainer nowadays. In fact, all Toni does is get a tan (if they’re outside) and watch the clock. Every two hours, she’s supposed to tell him the time. He wouldn’t come up otherwise; cannot exactly tell apart seconds and hours once he’s submerged.

It is less a matter of don’t want but instead of don’t mind – he wouldn’t _mind_ spending his life underwater. Here, where everything is so very peaceful and easy. Where sound works differently, where everything is slowed down.

Every movement is a caress. You’re being carried. Cradled, you could say.

The deeper or faster you swim, the less people can keep up with you. Get to you.

Jared prefers pools over the ocean, because the ocean has obstacles and many, many creatures who are built even better for this habitat.

Ever since middle school, Jared has this one, perfect dream.

In the dream, he is about to push off of the edge what first appears and then turns out to be one long, endless pool. He’s out of breath as if he’d just finished a lap, but he can’t remember it, what his time was. His heart is pounding (in excitement or exhaustion?) but his mind is completely calm. It’s an indoor pool and nobody but him is around. It’s late and all the lights are on. The water is perfectly clear. It sloshes as if there really had been someone moving through it shortly before.

Jared then pushes off, and he swims.

He swims endlessly. He swims all night, never stops once, doesn’t need to look left or right.

The ultimate freedom. The ultimate peace.

Back when he discovered the dream, he was far from where he is today. It’s a comfort today, a soothing bubble to dream in, but back then it was his reach for the stars.

To be like that! To feel like that! To be so fast, to swim so far, that nobody can reach him!

Oh, what brave thoughts those were. Jared started looking into lucid dream techniques to elicit it more regularly, until he summoned it every night for five years straight. What better way to spend the night, that stupid timeframe he cannot spend swimming, right?

Toni dips her scarlet red polished toes for him to see, again; third time for today.

~

Of course he’s not ready for it one way or the other, age-wise, life-wise, no, but his first thought sparks Jared-Heart lethal at those two untarnished, spotless blue stripes.

Waterfall-tears even before he hears Jared gasp for breath over his shoulder, dies ten ways before he notices he’s in Jared’s arms, crushed so hard he’s (for one, unforgivable second) almost-sure Jared will not let him breathe ever again.

“Oh god. Jen, oh _god_.”

“I’m sorry,” Jensen sobs, but then Jared’s mouth is on his, and Jared cradles his face like a keeper.

“Jen, baby, oh god!” Jared’s eyes gleam with tears and he’s smiling crazy, cheeks heated and mouth babbling. “Baby, we’ll have a _baby_ , a little _baby_ , Jen!”

Jensen can’t respond.

“That’s wonderful, that’s a _miracle_ , Jensen! I love you so much. Oh god, love you so so much, I’m—you’re a miracle, you’re an _angel_ , baby!”

Jared laughs euphoric-silly and it slowly, very slowly, sinks into Jensen that this is not the end. That this is not the end at all.

“You’re—it’s-i-it’s not? You’re not—not _angry_?”

Jared sobs no, no of course not, how could I, says how this is the best day of his life and picks Jensen up and spins the two of them around; like in the movies. Squeezes Jensen close and closer afterwards, and Jensen clings right back.

~

Jensen is a piece of art, carved to perfection. Jared likes to tell himself he was made just for him—his starving little boyfuck for him to keep, to fill, to fall asleep and wake up inside of.

Insatiable, just like him. A perfect match. Couldn’t have anything better put together with a plan; no.

Jensen is more and better than Jared deserves.

He’s invited to a small concert his love is playing a few towns over, and, yeah, Jensen had sung for him before (on command; little boy-bird), but this, this is different.

It’s on fire and too much and Jensen is having the time of his life, is so far away Jared gets teary-eyed halfway through the third song and there’s still an hour left to endure.

Post-show, Jensen is sweating from the lights and excitement, eyes and mouth wild, grinning like a drunk. Kisses Jared backstage, jumps up and into letting himself get picked up. Jared hears friends cheering their lead singer on from too close and barely gets his head clear enough to find a changing room to lock the two of them up in.

Jensen’s wide-eyed and panting, flat-flat chest moving in heaves, dick pressing against the fly of his too-tight jeans; starlet-pretty.

It’s not until Jared hears a hesitant, “Hey, what’s-what’s wrong?” that he comes to the conclusion that, yeah, something _is_ wrong.

He’s panting, hovering over Jensen who’s on his back on a make-up littered table, mirror in his back lined with soft lights, and Jared frowns at his reflection. Shivers at the sight.

Swallowing seems impossible. Jared is tight all over.

“Jen.”

Jensen doesn’t understand. Makes two.

“Jen,” Jared repeats, ’cause he needs to be heard right now, needs to be understood ’cause he’s afraid he can’t repeat it _again_ , “Jen I can’t take it.”

“Can’t take—can’t take what, baby? What’s wrong?”

“You,” Jared chokes, “out there, with everyone jus’. Jen they were _staring_ at you.”

Now, Jensen hesitates. An ugly thing to do—gives Jared’s mind space to roam into, bad space.

“It’s, um. Jared, baby, it’s a concert. People are kinda... _paying_ to see us play.”

“No. No, not like that. It was different.”

“Shhh, hey, hey, calm down okay?” Jared tries to twist his face out of Jensen’s reaching palms, but his love is insistent, keeps him, and Jared feels sick. Feels tears again, wills them away. “Look, I’m flattered you’re jealous. But you’ve got no reason to worry.” Jensen doesn’t even sound like himself; god. Jared hates all of it more by the second, growls, squeezes his eyes shut, doesn’t want to see Jen’s lit up face he wasn’t responsible for. Jensen must mistake that with puppy-petulance, ’cause he chuckles; petals kisses across Jared’s cheek, down, down, until he’s reached his mouth. Hovers there, whispers, “I’m yours, remember? I don’t want any of them. Only you.”

Jared has legs folded around his waist, is being pulled in. Is safe in his lover’s arms, has him for himself—now. Keeps his eyes closed for now, tests his nails against the table.

Jared breathes, “Say that again.”

“Only want you, P.”

Shudders with the sound of it, the love-voice Jensen has for Jared’s name. Leans in closer so he can mouth at that neck, can feel the slowly calming pulse.

Jared grinds down, groans, “Again.”

“Only you,” a sigh, soft and Jared-exclusive. Makes Jared’s heart swell, makes his dick wet; makes him dry-sob into Jensen’s skin. He’s cradled in return, kissed, shared like a secret. “Of all the people in the entire world, I like you the most.”

Jared comes to with a knock on the door, blinks against Jensen’s cheeks who eats at his mouth, sweats on two of Jared’s fingers corkscrewing into his ass.

Begging eyes, drippy mouth; “Don’t stop.”

When the knocking won’t stop, Jared bellows, “Get lost!” and finds out he sounds nothing like himself, fetches a rubber from his wallet and Jen is so hungry for it he doesn’t even give him a lecture about how unsafe that is.

He puts it on one-handedly, stares down at the shivery length of himself before and while he feeds it into Jensen’s body like a mission.

Jensen tries to rise up, looks starry-eyed in the corner of Jared’s vision—then dumbfucked when Jared’s palm knocks the air out of him with how sudden-hard it forces him down.

“D—guh— _ah_ —”

“C’mon, let ‘em hear you.”

“Ah, Jare, n, don.”

“C’mon. No need to be shy. C’ _mon_ —”

Jensen knocks his head back against the mirror on the first punch in and up into his prostate, guitar-fingers flying for Jared, then to Jared’s hand when the one formerly on a chest joins the other around Jensen’s throat.

With Jensen’s jeans (tight tight too fucking tight jesus christ) still caught around his ankles which are now splayed over Jared’s shoulders, Jared tastes blood ’cause Jensen’s belt buckle knocks him across the face.

Jared can feel that moan and squeezes tighter. Pile-drives into Jensen, makes the dresser creak and rattle and die, can feel gasps that won’t make it past his grip. The slip of fingers over his knuckles barely registers.

Jensen’s eyes open sudden and wide, wet, like his mouth; question marks, exclamation points.

Again, something wants to crawl out—Jared screws it shut.

Jensen bucks like prey.

“Stay down.”

Fucks harder through the added clutch of oxygen-deprivation.

“Stay still. Stay still, baby.”

Jensen’s head changes color. The cups of his eyes runneth over for good.

Jared sees blood on his knuckles, and the shock slams his orgasm through him like the crack of a whip.

While he rides it out, Jensen’s lips go purple, deep purple, ugly-pretty-blueish, and he gurgles like death shortly before Jared’s hands fly off and let him haul, haul endlessly for the breath he needs to catch up on.

Would sit up if Jared wouldn’t keep him where he is with one forearm across his chest, rattles and chokes and cradles his thin throat in a faint, redundant fit of self-preservation.

He’s looking at Jared like he’s never seen him before.

Jared blinks. Feels pain biting at his skin where Jensen scratched him; licks his lip.

“Stay. Down.”

Leans back, less slight the more Jensen seems to stay obedient, pulls out, discards the condom, and Jensen is still motionless on top of the dresser then. Hands on his throat, eyes red with popped capillaries; he stares and heaves.

There is a sat-through sofa that creaks when Jared flops down on it. Both hands wiping over his face, hair back, eyes closed, bent over his knees.

Jared sweetens, “You won’t—we’ll. I’ll get you new jeans tomorrow, yeah? These make you look like a whore.”

~

“Those’re for people who whore around, baby. Or are you someone like that?”

Jensen shakes his pink-appled head, and Jared smiles approvingly.

“See, that’s what I thought.”

Pill after pill gets popped into the toilet. Jensen flushes, doesn’t wave goodbye.

The next two cycles are how he knows it, but from then on it’s mayhem. He crawls his way through two weeks of bleeding, then obsesses over eight weeks of nothing, oh god.

Can’t get pregnant. Can’t, not ever, not with Jared, oh God.

Jared would leave him on the spot, ’cause what can Jensen even do _right_? What does Jensen have to _offer_?

Too afraid to risk his own neck talking, there’s no way he could address the issue. Pees on endless pregnancy tests, discards the evidence of his distrust in public waste bins; they’re never positive, but that’s no consolation.

What makes the situation even worse is that his libido decides to turn it up, like, ten notches. Jensen can’t get enough. Couldn’t exactly get enough before either, but now, it’s... He makes Jared miss training and sobs, half in panic and half about to get his brains fucked out.

Jensen knows he’s a mess, but not even a saint like Jared would want to keep someone as deranged as the mess he can only presume he’ll turn into once knocked up.

Wouldn’t want to touch himself, then. Gets sick at the thought. Doesn’t even know how it works, how it _would_ work. No ob-gyn has seen him so far, and he intends to keep it that way.

If his insides would just rot, he’d be grateful for it.

~

“Okay, so—Chris, Jensen, Ira, Jensen, Mary, Jensen, Jackson, Jensen—”

Jensen shakes hands; gets winked at, “So you’re the one who stole Big P away, huh?”

Jared hauls him just a little closer, hip to hip, hand in the back of Jensen’s jeans and Jensen bravely drapes an arm around his athlete’s caged-in waist. They stand and talk like this in the midst of Jared’s best friends, and Jensen is painfully aware of how much younger he is than everyone else. One couple (Amanda and...? He forgot.) is heavily pregnant, and Jensen hesitates, smiles in what almost resembles nervousness when he is asked if he wants to feel, it’s moving just now, c’mere kiddo, the miracle of life.

“What do you do for a living again?”

“I’m uh, I’m a—musician.” Collective ooohs and aaahs. Shy blush. Closer to Jared; more wine. “It’s, nothing big. We have this, this little band and I sing and I handle the guitar ’s all, really.”

“That sounds amazing though!”

“What’re you guys called? Where do you play next?”

“Uhm, currently we’re, we’re not really. We’re the Grimm Sisters though, we’re on, on Facebook and Instagram an’ all that, if you wanna check us out. Our boy Dan takes care of that, so, no guarantee for the content, haha.”

“Grimm Sisters, huh, cool.”

“What kinda music d’you guys play?”

“Rock,” Jensen says pride-quick, “mixed with a little uh a little country here an’ there, whatever fits, y’know. We try not to label ourselves too much.”

“Jared, you’ve ever seen your boy play yet? What’d you say, are they good?”

“Yeah.” Hand deeper into Jensen’s pocket. “Yeah, they’re pretty fucking good, man.”

~

God, Jensen is so enamored. So happy to be a part of this man and this life. Loves and lives for the light Jared shines upon his moth-winged boy heart.

Wants to curl and crawl, would do _anything_.

Makes the devastation so much worse when he Fails, again, forces Jared to fall apart to something as vile as Anger, again; this saint, this piece of heaven, this blessing!

Jared would never let him, but sometimes Jensen thinks about leaving. Doesn’t share the two-pm-am-thoughts about ‘maybe better that way?’, feels even weaker for even having them in the first place.

How much brighter Jared would shine without the stain that is Jensen. What a weight he bears, what chores.

Jensen just wants to be good. It’s all he ever wants.

~

Jared wants his name on everything he owns. Swim gear collection. House in the Hamptons. Charity organization. His boy-love-wonder.

Others use knives, but Jared knows steady waters carve so much deeper.

(Moreover, Jared’s peach tree has a bark so soft the blade would sink right in, no resistance. He’d fall through flesh and insides and would come out on the other side none the wiser.)

Jared always knew exactly what he wanted and then went for it, no taking hostages, nuh-uh. Maybe his biggest flaw is stitched tight here: impatience. So many times unconscious in the pool, legs cramped to shit, teenage lungs suffocating under pressure and want.

But Jen. Jen makes him softer there.

Which makes Jared afraid. Very much so.

Catches himself drawing initials into Jensen’s palms, his back, and realizes how utterly gone he is. Absorbed in the bliss Jensen provides, it’s unthinkable to lose him. That Jensen could be anything but Jared’s. That Jensen isn’t already his, head to toe, inside-out.

Jensen stirs sex-asleep, closer to Jared’s chest against his back, even though once awake likes to complain that Jared’s a furnace and too much to take, especially now that it’s summer and this is friggin’ _Texas_ , P.

It’s four a.m. and Jared Tristan tears up in a secret panic fit. Untangles himself from his lover so he can sit up and smack himself in the face until his brain is back online. Wipes tears off and away, takes a shaky breath, blinks sleep back into his eyes.

Stares to his own feet, so dark on the white sheets; the hint of Jensen’s body next to him.

JP. It would be the same for them both. JP.

The next day, a goldsmith gets commissioned to carve delicate letters into something simple yet elegant. Waiting this one week for the piece to be completed might be torture, but once in his hand, it calms Jared to a point where he doesn’t immediately come up with The Date and The Time and The Place.

The ring is perfect, and he knows Jensen will love it. Even though they’ve yet to talk about this after only month eight plus thirteen sweet days, Jensen most likely _will_ say Yes. Jared has only the best of feelings about it all.

The ring seals—Jared’s fears, insecurities, to leave this much more space for dreams and hopes to run free.

He holds it against lights and skies in the shy heartbreak-minutes he has to himself, and almost doesn’t feel alone.

~

Tommy-Tomcat-Tom, scratchy little thing with the wit of Mouse Jerry instead. Digs baby-claws into Daddy wherever he can reach but cotton-sweets Emma and Papa, knows how to play as if he’s read all the books and knows all the tricks.

He runs long before he speaks; mute little mouse with mighty hands that uproot plants and rip apart toys. Saccharine-sweet boy who emaciated the body housing him to the point of cachexia. Danger on two legs, awake eyes, but he cuddles even more than Emma can stand it these days.

He’s so much like Jared that he can’t comprehend how Jensen’s never been afraid of Emma.

But Tomcat, quick little pussycat, he doesn’t exactly _hate_ the water, no, but the only way you get him to swim is to _throw_ him in so he _has_ to do something to get his beloved ground back under his feet.

And then he runs. Never far, never out of sight (mostly in circles) – but you know he _could_ , if only he wanted, decided.

He loves all of his family the same but there’s this ferocity for Daddy, openly spelled out in love-you when he digs in again. Jared swallows yelps while Tom watches, fascinated by control at the age of five short months, a junkie for it but who not minutes later lets his big sister doll him around in her imaginary tea parties.

The only times he sits still is when he’s asked to. He waits, then, with the silent scream to be freed compressed to fit his endless, dream-wet eyes.

~

Jen’s hemorrhoids, at month six, are a thing of pure, absolute beauty.

Jensen’s leaking in uncountable ways but he needs it, god, he needs so bad and so raw and always, fucking _always_ begs to be climbed on, to be allowed _to_ climb on, something, anything, just stuff me, Jay, need it, it _hurts_ , need you in so bad.

He grows tits that ache outside of the cup of palms or lips, that strain and chafe and drive him crazy just about as much as they do to his husband. Touching or not touching almost makes no difference. Jen makes a face either way, turns into and away simultaneously, breaks into whispers ’cause he’s afraid what slips his stupid mouth when Jared pinch-pulls on him like he wants the milk to shoot in already, suckles on him as if it already has.

Teenage-palm sized, dwarfed against Jared’s giant nature. Jensen can’t stop blushing when he’s urged into purchasing a bra, _just something small, beautiful, people are starting to notice, I don’t want them to see_. It hugs him tight and that sensation and friction is so new, so emasculating in a way that surprises his pregnant self. He hides in even bigger shirts, wears undershirts so nobody can tell there is something _underneath_. He obsesses over bra straps all the while contemplating locking his never-down chafe of a cock. He’s indecent, all over.

Feels like fever once they’re alone, an itch all over Jared does his best to scratch. Jensen is a squirmer lately and they found out it’s best to let him ride it. Choked little somethings, figure-eights that never quite make it, swell of child bumping Jared’s unharmed six-pack. Jensen moan-cries for more, stop, and when he’s out of breath Jared switches them into doggy style, one hand on Jen’s shoulder to pull him back on the slam in, and Jensen’s never made those kind of sounds before, with no one.

~

He’s six and his growth isn’t up to par, so they do an ultrasound on him.

Mommy gasps.

Jensen won’t understand until age fourteen, waking up in a pool of blood, screaming for her.

~

The personal trainer Jenny does yoga with five times a week has dreadlocks down to her hips and smells so much like patchouli that Jared has to hire a different one now that Jen's pregnant nose is so hot-wired to his stomach.

That, though, is all the inconvenience Jensen Ross has to endure, and it’s kinda nice, too. Everything smells so much more intense. Food is heavenly for Jared’s husband now. It’s hard keeping an eye on what he sticks into his mouth these days, and when there’s lingering in front of a new sushi place downtown, Jared tugs that arm hard enough to startle Jensen into two unnecessary steps.

Organic produce, best of the best. No chicken, no fish, only the ripest of the ripest of cheeses. Jen moans about cream cheese with jam, and Jared’s fingers dig into the quickly whitening-out meat of his own palm.

“Baby,” he suffocates, “we _talked_ about this.”

Jensen gasps audibly, hand immediately flying down to cup the barely hint of a stomach, wheezes, “Oh, sorry, y-ye _ah_ ,” and he sounds sorry alright but this is important, and Jared can’t bear to lose their child to a passing crave.

Bicep shudders under five fingers, softens to make the dig in easier for them.

Jensen is looking down, away. Jared’s mouth pulls tighter while Jensen’s bows open for, “N—don. P-please not.” Both hands now, arms, covering his middle.

Jared calms, “Hey, c’mon, I’m takin’ care of you two, yeah?” but already cannot feel his face anymore.

Padaleckis can take a lot.

~

Why him?

Jensen might be asking himself the same question now and then, but this is Jared now, alone, all his loves strewn around him on this giant bed—Tomcat drooling on Jared’s belly and Em, between Jensen and him, so tiny all curled in like her papa likes to do it.

Jared’s been before Jensen, would be after Jensen. But he wouldn’t truly be _there_.

Jensen turns him mortal, and that’s it. That’s the point. That is why.

So greedy, his little one. Why. Why can’t it ever be _enough_.

Jared, god help him, will never be able to stop giving.

~

It is one time and one time only that it happens, and it leaves Jared’s knuckles scraped raw for a week. It’s also the one and only time he has to drive Jen to the hospital, and Jared’s so sick of himself while they wait in the secluded room Jared bribed the head nurse for. Goes pale in sympathy while Jen’s nose streams and streams and streams.

He crooked it, forever, and it only took one blow, one mere _brush_.

He paid enough so he could have had them pump some silicone into Jen’s tits while they reconstructed the sublime right-tilt of that bridge, and their work is excellent, of course it is, but, oh.

Jared can never unsee it.

Jensen is Bambi-quiet in his hospital bed. He’s surrounded by roses, all red, all Jared’s, and he cries even though it must hurt like a bitch. Sobs his litany of sorries with Jared cradling him with tears in his eyes himself.

Does Jared hate him now? Will he leave now? So ugly, deformed, they said it’ll take weeks to heal and Jared’s mom’s birthday is next week, how, Jared, how will this _work_?

Jared makes it work. ’Cause that’s his job. Keeps in line – himself, too.

Vows once and only once: never again (in the face).

And sticks with it.

~

Jared keeps his worries wound-up tight, deep, but.

Sometimes, it’s just. Hard. Eats at him until he’s not sure he’s there anymore, if he’s any good anymore.

Asks at night if it makes him a Bad Father because he’s frightened he can’t love anyone as much as Jensen, not even his own babies.

Jensen, despite his half-asleep state, crumbles his brows together, devotedly states that no, god, baby, P, you’re the best, we love you so much, you’re all we could ask for and more.

Dreams of Way Back from the throne he keeps his consciousness in at night, changes the channel to Jensen-Love when he’s sick of it, soothes his soul here now.

If it would haunt him like this if he had paid more attention as it happened? Now feels like being crept upon, especially with his children growing up around him. Little triggers, especially Tommy with the striking resemblance of tiny Jared Tristan. When Tommy hurts himself falling or running or however, he cries out so loud Jared’s ears ring. An unheard-of sound. Painful, accusing. Jared’s watched Jen do this before, but it’s so hard to tell this squirming piece of human, “Shhh, baby, it’s nothing, Daddy’s here, Daddy’s got you,” ’cause Daddy’s not really here and the child won’t listen anyway.

Dipping into cold water. Cold, cold was good. Cold meant nobody would follow. Would soothe his legs that stretched and stretched without mercy, took his mind off—all of it.

Freak!

Psycho Polack!

Turtle-neck!

Jared remembers hissing at them like a sea serpent that one time, can’t remember why, but remembers sitting in the principal’s office with a loose tooth and a bleeding nose, getting a lecture about Violence and Temper. Remembers being sent home with a letter to his parents about, and Dad read it out loud with shock-wide eyes, about the things Jared apparently did and doesn’t remember.

For the first time in a long time, Jared is inside, fully inside himself, and what he sees are Mom and Dad staring at him like he’s a monster.

Jared doesn’t come back inside for a long, long while. Grows a foot and a half in the meantime, his first pube.

I just want to be good. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please, I want to be good, please don’t look at me like that!

It happens again. Jared sobs the night through the teeth marks on his forearm, DNA of a kid he almost-drowned.

I don’t want to be this way. Let me be good. Please, let me be good.

Forced to stay inside himself, too scared of what will happen if he drifts, the pains hit him hundredfold. Words hurt, slice him up. But he deserves.

Working harder outside of the pool—trying to make friends just to be shooed away, go fuck yourself, don’t _touch_ me. Finally talking to his trainer to take him along to that tournament, even if he’s not allowed to take part again after What Happened. Sits demure and tight, hands folded in his lap as if they’d grab and tear if he doesn’t pay attention.

They spit and scratch, like Tom, and Jared deserves.

~

Jensen broadened his world. In Big P’s life, prior to meeting his soulmate and future father of his children, anything was possible if he was fast enough. Aerodynamic, laser hair removal and some say his long hair is a lucky charm. Jensen Ross Padalecki, as he charmingly names his husband, tugs him just that little bit closer on the seat, is the real reason he’s breathing, we’re told.

“There's something about knowing,” Mr. P relates seriously, brow furrowed, which is uncommon and striking on his handsome face, “that there’s more than just you.”

~

“It’s not that unusual,” he hears Jared explain somewhere. Ira is running her tender hands over baby-swell that is slightly behind her own, eyes wide with wonder, with miracle.

Jensen feels like some kind of science project and wishes he could have some wine right about the fuck now.

“Is it a kind of birth defect?”

“A mutation?”

“I’ve talked to quite a few doctors and it seems like it’s a mood of nature. A sort of... Y’know, in times of good harvest and such, species adapt and find ways to produce more offspring? ‘S something like that.”

Species. Offspring. Jensen stares at Ira’s hands that won’t quit feeling him up.

She whispers, eyes flicking up big brown damp to Jensen, “Does it hurt?” and he replies just as quiet, “I don’t know.” There isn’t much data about male pregnancy. Only very few men who are like Jensen are fertile.

“It’s rare though, for it to work, I mean. And he’s doing so good, too.” A hand comes down on Jensen’s shoulder, and he blindly smiles up to his husband. Gets a smile in return, a soft, “We’re very lucky.”

~

As life has it, first times are there for everything. But Jared’s never thought he’d live to see the day he’d come to hate _water_.

Water, out of all the things.

Or that a set of doctors would part just to send forth the bravest of them, to announce Jared should get ready, wash up. That there might not be much time left.

Jared commits treason by pouring _water_ (and soap) and _water_ , without end, to wash away Baby-Lia scent, Jensen-Lamb scent, while Jensen is bleeding to death next door.

He’s clean, so scarily bland-clean except for the horror on his face, thoughts shortly stirring to Emma Emilia emergency-parked at Jared’s parents and she won’t even be able to say goodbye because he stole that away from her, god, he’s a monster; he’s done it.

He’s gonna be sick.

The air is so full of blood. Climbs every atom, will haunt Jared forever; all that red, god, _god_.

Things, brighter things flash before him, but he can’t see beyond glistening insides where they are still trying to stitch him back together, where Jensen looks like a murder victim and is indeed about to turn into one.

Jared is overcome, suddenly, violently, with the wisdom that existence is fragile.

There's something violent in these ends, something uglier about him and this loss and what it means. Jensen is dying. He’s retching out his boy-blood and the slick-fuchsia of his insides and there’s a savage parasite where Jared thought his second-born might live. Jensen’s the only whole thing he’s gotten to keep. And he demolished it.

Ash-pale, red-smeared. No movement but slow-motioned breath, aided by machines and tubes.

Jared only notices that he’s come to stand next to his love once someone’s busy shoulder bumps into him. His fingers are so cold, even colder than Jared’s own, and he can still feel that, somehow, even though he can’t comprehend how or why.

“Jensen. Jen. Baby. Jensen.”

It’s the first time Jared feels betrayed by something that’s never done him any harm. Jensen’s never crippled him. He’s self-aware enough to know that he’s not a perfect man. At times, he’s probably not much of a good one. But god, how he tries. He bends himself counterclockwise to make himself fit around Jensen, his bright-baby, more perfect than Jared thought he’d ever be able to touch. And now it will no longer be.

“Baby, you can’t leave. Not now. Please, baby, not now.”

No response. Nothing.

“Jen. Jen, I know it hurts, but you’ve gotta come back.” The words feel familiar. Tears push at his eyes, make him blink-drop. “Baby, I love you. I love you so so much. Please. Please.”

A hand on his back, a voice calling his name, demanding his attention; he brushes both of, croaks,

“Not yet.”

Six male nurses are required to remove him and the only reason they don’t strap him down is that he’s lying flat on the floor, choking on his own wails.

Embryo-shaped like the killer they cut out of his boy, and he’s crying beyond pain. Water has always been his rescue, his escape, but now it’s running out of him without control, draining him, leaving him as alone as he’d never dared to fear to be able to end up.

It’s a relief-cut, a coupe de grâce, when someone wakes him underneath the hospital bed he’s crawled or rolled under, has big exhausted eyes and a jittery hand and tells him he made it, sir, the bleeding stopped, it’s a miracle but it’s stopped, it’s done, he’ll _live_ , sir.

The only moment he stops sobbing and thanking is when he’s got his little girl on the line, toddler-chirps, “Baby, baby your brother’s here, you’ll come and say hi to him with Daddy, yeah, baby girl?”

Miracles upon miracles, because neither Jensen nor Jared end up with postpartum depression. Jensen, actually – god bless that he fell under so soon once the contractions had started – recovers remarkably fast, is, of course, obviously damaged and shaken, but he’s stitched up so pretty they say the scarring will be minimal. He soon smiles and insists he’s good, that he’s simply glad that It’s over.

It, being the eight months and two weeks Thomas Jade Padalecki tried to end him from the inside out.

And how sweet, how innocent this child drinks and sleeps and blinks alive.

As if he was saying: nothing to see here; move on.

~

Ira unearths something unexpectedly blue—Jensen’s ribs.

He had hissed at the touch and she’s fast, and Jensen is mumbling panic-quick explanations, fell, rolled over, oh the weight of the baby, it’s really, it’s really a lot, don’t you think so too, don’t you have the same problems?

She nods, slowly, before she breaks into a grin of a grimace, arches her back and says, “Damn, isn’t it? Little Kyle’s gonna _break_ me one of these days!”

Jared’s always-hovering, always-watching. Jensen is so lucky, so lucky, Jared’s such a sweetheart, will be such a great father, oh Jen, so l-u-c-k-y.

Some of these people are exes of Jared’s. They try not to be jealous, especially the women who could have carried Jared’s babies probably so much better. But Jared likes to stay friends with as many people as possible, has so much love to give, so much space in his house not even a dozen kids could take up, _haha_ , don’t look at me like that baby one is enough yeah one is enough.

Awwws and dreamy eyes.

Nobody says anything about Jensen’s newly turned-bad knee except for, “Oh, P’s clumsy baby fell again,” and then there’s laughter Jensen joins in on.

~

Emma-Em-Lia—beautiful just like her Papa, but she’s part Jared, too.

The proof of their love. That Jensen’s his. That he’s had Jared’s baby. That this is big, forever.

God, he wants her all over the newspapers.

“You really think this is a good idea?” murmurs Jensen worry-soft, eyes their child with as much concern as Jared himself, maybe more. She’s so easy though, not shy at all, lets everyone prepare her for the shoot. A baby fashion line; Fair Trade, Jared’s triple-checked it.

“They’ll love her,” Jared decides. “Don’t worry.”

The more she grows, the more obvious her heritage becomes. Jensen’s eyes, Jensen’s skin and hair. The latter platinum, almost white though with how fine and baby-new it is, but the docs say it will grow out Mr. Padalecki, no worries, and Jensen sighs in relief.

They’re both with her at all shoots but Jared is the eagle-eyed one, really; makes make-up and hair stylists sweat heavy under his scrutinizing squints and crossed arms. Ducks and runs lightning fast when his angel blinks doll-perfect and asks for, “Sippy please, Daddy?” He’d buy her the world if she asked.

She’s more into toys than into clothes but Jared loves dressing her up: Tomboy today, Princess tomorrow. The fashion world loves her, and she loves them—the attention, the praise, the smiles she collects at the ripe age of twenty-six months. The Padalecki household gets to donate heaps of toys each month to hospitals, orphanages around the world. They never seem to stop coming in the mail though, covered in stickers and sweet greeting cards labeled ‘for the darling Ms. Padalecki’.

Em’s favorite thing in the world is singing with Papa, shortly followed by swimming with Daddy. She sleeps like a stone, naturally. She grows up nightmare-free.

~

Love-drunk, those first weeks. Things are said too early, maybe, but they feel like wings set on fire, wild and consuming.

Jensen likes to kiss Jared head to toe, every slick perfect inch, likes to be watched while he does it, too. Cheshire-cat-wicked; he can be adorable, can be somewhat sexy.

He never wants it to end. Holes up with this man, gives him all of himself and more, has the first big L pulled from between his teeth like a long-overdue toffee at week six, tangled in sheets and limbs. Neither Jared nor Jensen start or stop anywhere anymore those nights, those mornings. Jared fantasizes aloud about taking Jensen to the beach for a month, just keeping him in his vacation home and making love all day; “Jus’ like right now, but the _beach_ , baby, oh y’gotta see, wanna take you there.”

Jared said the L right back, eager like a teen, by the way, and Jensen feels immortal with this man.

“You’re for me,” Jensen hears, sleep-love-slurred into half ear, half hair, and breaks into a drowsy smile.

I am, he thinks, I _am_.

~

Part of Jensen, the reluctant part, the childish part, tries to hint how nothing of this has to do with the baby.

(He takes that part, gags and ties it up, throws it into the river he keeps in himself for occasions like this.)

Despite sprawling on the floor, P looks majestic. Strung-tight muscles, even when he’s frowning and tip-toeing, little boy curl to Jensen’s feet, massaging them as if this was month eight or nine and they’re swollen and need him.

Jensen’s frowning, too.

“So, you’re saying. I’m just supposed to—to _quit_?”

“I know it’s crazy, Jen, that m’being overprotective. I just... You’re the only thing I have. The best thing I have. An’ you’re. You’re giving me this _gift_ an...I just wanna keep you _safe_.”

Sympathetic eyes up to him. Puppy-soft huff signalizing _this is hard for me as well_.

Jared only wants the best for him. Works tirelessly to keep him comfortable.

“I take care of what I love, baby. I don’t want you to think I’m—that I’m stifling your creativity. I’m not. I’m not. I just want you to have everything.”

Jensen says, “I know,” and the smile comes gooey-slow.


End file.
